Objective: The process by which students decide to stay in college has been primarily based on models that are independent of geographic context. This article describes the local labor market in which community college students are situated and discusses the multiple and complex ways these labor markets impact student decisions to persist and…

In a prior study, MDRC researchers found that Small Schools of Choice, a SIG-approved high school reform initiative, markedly and consistently increased high school graduation rates in New York City when it was implemented in 100+ high schools between 2002 and 2008. A four-year follow-up study found that the initiative increased students'…

Indigenous educational and employment disadvantage is a much researched and discussed subject. The latest Prime Minister's Closing the Gap report (DPM&C 2017) shows that, while the gap is slowly decreasing in regard to participation in tertiary education, reducing employment disparity, particularly in remote areas, lags behind. This is despite…

Community colleges play a key role in educating the large number of non-traditional, low-income, and under-prepared students who have entered higher education in the past several decades. Despite increased access, community colleges are struggling to graduate students. Most, if not all, strategies provided by scholars to improve college completion…

Access to detailed and comprehensive administrative data has opened up the possibility to pursue continuous, systematic, and more refined assessments of the effects of applied learning. However, most studies using such data have not examined the effects of applied learning on retention, graduation, and labor market outcomes. To better judge the…

Chemistry graduate education is under considerable pressure. Pharmaceutical companies, long a major employer of synthetic organic chemists, are drastically paring back their research divisions to reduce costs. Chemical companies are opening new research and development facilities in Asia rather than in the United States to take advantage of…

This comprehensive profile of students with disabilities enrolled in postsecondary education is based on four national surveys which examined the following questions: (1) how represented are students with disabilities in postsecondary education?; (2) which high school students with disabilities gain access to postsecondary education?; (3) how well…

Discusses issues of equity, access, and retention for African Americans in higher education. African Americans continue to be underrepresented in higher level positions largely because they are underrepresented in higher education for economic and social reasons that an increasingly multiracial society may not be able to tolerate. (SLD)

This paper provides initial results of a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of first-generation students, their college choices, their academic and social integration into the institution, their postsecondary persistence and attainment outcomes, and their labor market outcomes. The study analyzed data from the 1989-90…

Four Australian cohorts (born in 1961, 1965, 1970 and 1975) were studied between 1980-2000. The life transitions study focused on these three traditional markers of adulthood: (1) moving out of the parental home; (2) establishing an intimate relationship; and (3) buying a home. Incidence of these transitions was analyzed in terms of their…

The role of Ohio's community and technical colleges in educating low-wage workers was examined. Ohio's community and technical colleges were shown to be uniquely positioned to serve as bridges to growth and opportunity by helping the state and its workers make the transition to a knowledge-based economy and help low-wage workers gain the footing…